Richard J. Perr

Rick Perr is a partner with the Philadelphia law firm of Fineman Krekstein & Harris, P.C., where he concentrates his practice in complex commercial litigation and professional liability defense. He is a nationally recognized authority and lecturer on creditor’s rights, representing creditors, law firms and agencies against individual and class action allegations invoking federal and state consumer protection laws, including the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Mr. Perr also advises entities and individuals on matters related to compliance in the credit and collection industry, including review, implementation and auditing of policies and procedures, especially in adherence with governmental regulatory bodies such as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP).

Mr. Perr is the Immediate Past President of ACA International, served as its President from 2017-2018, its President-Elect from 2016-2017 and its Treasurer from 2013-2014. He is the past Chair of the Members’ Attorney Program Committee (MAP Committee). He previously served as the State Compliance Chair for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He also currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Mid-Atlantic Collectors Association.

Mr. Perr is a member of the Professional Liability Defense Federation, and he was a member of the Burlington County (NJ) Bar Association where he served as Chairman of the Federal Practice Committee and the Co-Chair of the Government Relations Committee. He was the Chairman of the Election Law Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association from 2003-2005. He also served for four years as a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Ethics Committee for District IV (Camden and Gloucester Counties).

Mr. Perr has been recognized among his peers as a New Jersey “Super Lawyer” from 2006 to 2011 for his expertise in business litigation. He has also received the coveted distinction of being named a 2008 “Lawyer on the Fast Track” by The Legal Intelligencer and the Pennsylvania Law Weekly. This prestigious award is bestowed upon a select number of Pennsylvania lawyers who have shown outstanding promise in the legal profession and who have made a significant commitment to the community-at-large.

Mr. Perr has served as a foreign policy intern for then United States Senator Al Gore (D-TN) and was the Chairman of the Burlington County Democratic Party. Mr. Perr also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Rutgers – Camden School of Law, teaching Election and Political Campaign Law, and has appeared in numerous national, regional and local publications and on broadcast media on the issues of politics and election law. He was also a contributing author for the twenty-volume encyclopedia Constitutions of the Countries of the World.

Mr. Perr has a B.A. (1991) in Political Science, English and History from Rutgers College and is an International and Foreign Law Honors graduate of Rutgers – Camden School of Law (1994). He is admitted to practice in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, and before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second, Third and Eleventh Circuits, and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York and for the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts of Pennsylvania.

Experience

Szczurek v. Prof’l Mgmt., No. 14-4775, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 17245 (3d Cir. September 10, 2015) (In an FDCPA action, debt collector was entitled to judgment on the pleadings under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c), because court disagreed with debtor’s interpretation of a sentence in a debt collection letter as misleading and declined to hold debt collector liable for failing to notify consumers of rights above and beyond what was required by the FDCPA).

Douglass v. Convergent Outsourcing, No. 13-3588, 765 F.3d 299 (3d Cir. 2014) (The district court erred in granting the debt collector summary judgment on the debtor’s 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(8) claim where the disclosure of the account number implicated a core concern of the FDCPA, i.e., invasion of privacy, and thus, its disclosure was not benign).

Seamans v. Temple Univ., No. 12-4298, 744 F.3d 853 (3d Cir. 2013) (In this FCRA action, the grant of summary judgment to the university was vacated; once the borrower’s loan had been repaid, the trade line pertaining to the Loan should have “aged off” his credit report pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(4), because the Loan by that time had been placed for collection more than seven years prior).

Caprio v. Healthcare Revenue Recovery Group, LLC, No. 12-1846, 709 F.3d 142 (3d Cir. 2013) (Based on the court’s interpretation of a collection letter from the perspective of the applicable “least sophisticated debtor,” it determined that the substance and the form of the letter overshadowed and contradicted the validation notice, contrary to 15 U.S.C. § 1692g. It was deceptive because it could be read to have two or more meanings).

Lesher v. Law Offices of Mitchell N. Kay, PC, No. 10-3194, 650 F.3d 993 (3d Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 2012 U.S. LEXIS 967 (Jan. 23, 2012) (Two debt collection letters from a law firm, acting as a debt collector, were deceptive in violation of the FDCPA because they falsely implied that an attorney was involved in collecting the debt, and the least sophisticated debtor would reasonably believe that an attorney had reviewed the file and determined that legal action was appropriate).

Counseled client through the purchase of a debt portfolio with a face value of $2.4 billion. Fast-paced transaction with an end-of-the-year deadline.

Successfully forced plaintiff’s counsel to resolve a substantial class action on an individual basis, which dramatically lowered the exposure to the client. Because the nature of the case changed from a class action to a single plaintiff lawsuit the client was only required to pay a nominal settlement.

Obtained summary judgment on behalf of a leasing company sued as a result of a multiple fatality motor vehicle accident. Plaintiffs alleged that the leasing company’s failure to maintain its own insurance policy on the vehicle made it responsible under a state statute requiring such companies to have insurance to pay for the damages caused by the driver of the vehicle. The court agreed with the leasing company and ruled that noncompliance with the statute did not create a private right of action by the Plaintiffs.